I went very still at those words. The King’s Justice was the highest-ranking adviser to the king. The highest position beside Harristan himself. Our father once said that he was allowed to stay in the people’s good graces because the King’s Justice handled anything . . . unsavory.
Another consul at the time, a man named Talec, coughed to cover a laugh and said, “Corrick will be the King’s Justice? At fifteen?”
“Was I unclear?” said Harristan.
“Exactly what justice will he mete out? No dinner? No playtime for Kandala’s criminals?”
“We must be strong,” said Theadosia, her voice full of scorn. “You dishonor your parents. This is no time for Kandala’s rulers to be a source of mockery.”
You dishonor your parents. The words turned my insides to ice. Our parents were killed because the council failed to uncover a traitor.
“He looks like he’s ready to cry,” said Talec, “and you expect to hold your throne with him at your side?”
I was ready to cry. But after their statements, I was terrified to show one single flicker of weakness. My parents were killed by someone they trusted, and we couldn’t allow the same to happen to us.
“No dinner and no playtime,” I said, and because Harristan sounded so unyielding, I forced my voice to be the same. I felt like I was playing a role for which I’d had no time to rehearse. “You will spend thirty days in the harvest fields. You are to fast from midday until the next morning.”
There was absolute silence for a moment, and then Theadosia and Talec exploded out of their seats. “This is preposterous!” they cried. “You can’t assign us to work in the fields with the laborers.”
“You asked for a demonstration of my justice,” I said. “Be sure to work quickly. I have heard the foremen carry whips.”
Talec’s eyes were like fire. “You’re both children. You’ll never hold this throne.”
“Guards,” I said flatly.
I remember worrying that the guards would not obey, that the council would overthrow us both. That we would dishonor our parents. After what Barnard had done, every face seemed to hide a secret motive that would lead to our deaths.
But then the guards stepped forward and took hold of Talec and Theadosia. The doors swung closed behind them, leaving the room in absolute silence. Every pair of eyes around the table sat wide and staring at my brother.
Harristan gestured at the seat to his right—the seat just vacated by Talec. “Prince Corrick. Take a seat.”
I did. No one else dared to say a word.
Harristan has held on to his throne for four years.
We’re later than usual today, and the food is likely going cool, but he’s in no rush to eat. When my father ran meetings, there was a sense of jovial ease around this table, but that’s always been lacking during Harristan’s reign.
He glances at me. “You have the response for Artis?”
I place a leather folio on the table before him, along with a fountain pen. He makes a show of reviewing the document, though he’d probably sign a letter authorizing his own execution if I placed it in front of him. Harristan has little patience for lengthy legal documents. He’s all about grand plans and the broad view. I’m the one who dwells in details.
He signs with a little flourish, lays the pen to the side, and shoves the folio down the table to Jonas Beeching, an older man with a girth as round as he is tall. I guarantee he’s dying to eat, but he eagerly flips open the cover. He’s expecting a positive response, I can tell. He’s practically salivating at the idea of bringing chests full of gold back to Artis this afternoon.
His face falls when he reads the refusal I drafted. “Your Majesty,” he says carefully to Harristan. “This bridge would reduce the travel time from Artis to the Royal Sector by three days.”
“It should also cost half as much,” I say.
“But—but my engineers have spent months on this proposal.” He glances around the table, then back at us. “Surely you could not make a determination in less than a day—”
“Your engineers are wrong,” I say.
“Perhaps we can come to some sort of compromise. There—there must be an error in calculation—”
“Do you seek a compromise, or do you suspect an error?” says Harristan.
“I—” Jonas’s mouth hangs open. He hesitates, and his voice turns rough. “Both, Your Majesty.” He pauses. “Artis has lost many lives to the fever.”
At the mention of the fever, I want to look at Harristan. I want to reassure myself that he’s fine. That the rattle in his breathing this morning was all in my imagination.
I steel my will and keep my eyes on Jonas. “Artis receives a ration of Moonflower petals, just like the other sectors. If your people need more, they will need to buy it just like anyone else.”
“I know. I know.” Jonas clears his throat. “It seems the warm weather is causing the fever to spread more quickly among the dockworkers. We are having difficulty keeping ships loaded and staffed. This bridge would reduce our reliance on the waterways and allow us to rebuild some of the trade that has been lost.”
“Then you should have asked for an appropriate amount of gold,” I say.
“Artis can’t build a bridge without healthy workers,” says Arella Cherry, who sits at the opposite end of the table. She took over for her father when he retired last year. She’s from Sunkeep, a sector far in the south that’s bordered by the Flaming River on the west and the ocean to the south and east. Her people fare the best from the fevers, and it’s thought that Sunkeep’s high heat and humidity make them less susceptible—but the heat is so oppressive that their population is by far the smallest of any of Kandala’s sectors. She’s soft-spoken, with rich russet-brown skin and waist-length black hair that she keeps twisted into a looping knot at the back of her head. “Medicine should factor into their proposal.”
“Every city needs healthy workers for all projects,” says Harristan. “Which is why each city receives a ration of medicine for their people. Including yours, Arella.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she says. “And my people fare well because of it.” She pauses. “But my people are not attempting to construct a bridge across the Queen’s River in the dead heat of summer.”
Her voice is quiet and deferential, but there’s a core of steel beneath her gentle voice and soft hands. If she had her way, Harristan would seize Allisander’s lands along with everyone else’s, and he’d distribute Moonflower petals with abandon. We’d also be thrust into a full-on civil war when the other consuls refused to yield their territories, but she’s never keen to acknowledge that side of things. That said, she’s one of the few people at this table I enjoy a bit of conversation with.
Unfortunately, the last woman who weaseled her way into my thoughts also tried to poison me and Harristan at dinner. It wasn’t the first assassination attempt, but it was definitely the closest anyone has gotten since our parents were killed.
So romance is off the table for me.
Allisander Sallister clears his throat. He sits almost directly opposite me, and his face is pale, with pink spots over his cheeks that look painted on. His hair and brows are both thick and brown, and he wears a goatee that he’s clearly enamored of, but I think looks ridiculous. He’s only a year younger than Harristan, and they were friends when they were boys. My brother had few companions when we were children, but Allisander was one of the few who had the patience to sit in the library and move chess pieces around a board or listen to tutors read from books of poetry.